Our Travelogue
Canada/New England cruise on Crown Princess
Day 4 – Bar Harbor, Maine (pronounded: Baaaaa Haaaa baaaaa)
We are continued to be blessed with glorious weather here in New England. We arrived in Bar Harbor early at 7:00 a.m. and enjoyed breakfast in International Café before we got off the ship. We took our time as we didn’t have an excursion until 12 noon. We disembarked about 9:30 so we could walk through some of the shops near the waterfront. Unlike many other cruise ship ports, the New England cities have been able to retain their quaintness and individuality without the plethora of jewelry stores. There are many souvenir stores, don’t get me wrong, but they carry local merchandise and are just trying to make a living like you and me.
There are only 5,000 year-round residents in Bar Harbor. The coastline of Maine is rugged and dramatic; and, as you know, Maine is known for its lobster fishing. As we entered the small harbor, hundreds of buoys dotted the waters marking each individual spot where someone had put down their pots. Bar Harbor itself is nestled back in a small cove and is a tender port because the ships cannot negotiate the tiny islands and narrow passages. We anchored out and the tenders were lowered to begin carrying all of the passengers into town.
Once we got off our tender, we took our time walking through several of the shops. Nola and I each purchased a couple of beautiful Pashmina scarves in one boutique. We stopped by a local deli to grab a bite to eat before our tour began.
Today, we were being taken to the Cranberry Islands and to Acadia National Park and Cadillac Mountain. Arthur (pronounced Aaaathaa) was our guide for the day and he was delightful. He told us about some of the history of the area including how Samuel de Champlain discovered Mount Desert Island in 1604. Champlain originally named the island “Barren Mountain” because of the barren peaks worn smooth by the erosion of centuries. We heard stories of how Maine became a state in 1820, even though the northern border was still disputed by the British and Americans. Toward the end of the 1870’s, Bar Harbor attracted some of the wealthiest families in America because of its stunning beauty. John D Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Joseph Pulizer and the like all had mansions here. Most were destroyed in the fire of 1947. Rockefeller promoted the preservation of the island as well as establishing Acadia as a National Park in 1919.
Arthur guided our motor coach driver through the area out to a small cover where we boarded a small tour boat that took us out to Little Cranberry Island. The scenery was incredible in that only a few puffy white clouds dotted the skies above. The waters were calm as we glided across the water passing Sutton Island out to a small island where the sea lions were found basking in the sun. A few bald eagles were seen flying high in the pine trees. Our guide on the tour boat was a National Park Ranger named Betty. She was about 5’4” tall and very slender. She wore the standard olive green park ranger uniform along with her hard, wide-brimmed ranger hat. She wore no make-up. You could see her brown short hair just under the brim of her hat. She was incredibly knowledgeable about the area and gave us a lot of history about the glaciers and how they formed the fjords around us. Interestingly, we learned about the difference between a fjord and a fjard. The fjard has a narrow opening that was shallow and that is what we were in. The cliffs are dramatically straight up layers of granite dotted here and there with plants and trees. The impressive thing about what we saw were all of the huge homes. Each sits on acres of property – some with manicured lawns that I hoped they had a ride-on lawnmower to keep it groomed.
We stopped at Little Cranberry Island and were given the opportunity to walk about the tiny town of about 75 residents. It was up quite a hill so we got off and admired it from a distance. There were several apple trees along the path. There were also the remnants of an old wooden footbridge just sitting alongside the road that had seen better days. Residents on Little Cranberry are for-the-most part summer residents and quite well set monetarily. These are mostly second and third homes for them. There are two EMT’s on the island; but if you have a real medical emergency, you must be air lifted off by helicopter to the mainland.
After our cruise tour of Cranberry Islands, we once again boarded our coach and set out on a quest to Cadillac Mountain, the highest point on the Eastern seaboard. The view from the top was (as Nola says) “brilliant”. We could see forever it seemed. The coastline is jagged and rugged and the horizon was dotted with small islands. It was late afternoon by now, and rather brisk on top of the mountain, so we enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate when we left. Every so often you could see some color in some of the trees. We’ve been told that full cover will be in about 10-15 days from now due to their lack of rain this year. Throughout the vegetation were low mountain ash trees full of red berries. Several of the sugar maples were beginning to turn to yellow and bronze that added to the beauty and gave the opportunity to see some beginnings of the fall colors across the valleys.
The Crown Princess pulled away from Bar Harbor at sunset. The skies were brilliant shades of pink and orange and the three of us enjoyed it from our balcony while we toasted another beautiful day.
We continue to be blessed by the incredible weather we have had. Tomorrow is to be another such glorious day that we’ll spend in Saint John, New Brunswick. Till then…
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